"While Opposing Reagan's SDI , Moscow Pushes Its Own Star Wars"

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540 I October 21, 1986 I I WHILE OPPOSING REAGAN'S SDI MOSCOW
PUSHES. ITS OWN STAR WA:RS I INTRODUCTION At the Iceland summit
with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan
chose not to trade away the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) for
a reduction of nuclear arms that, while substantial, would still
leave the U.S. vulnerable to nuclear attack.

A major reason for Reagan's decision not to give up SDI is the
knowledge that the Soviet Union has been working on its own
strategic defense program for years. Moscow, in fact, deploys the
only operational anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system in the world.
Since 1970 it has spent roughly $80 billion more than the U.S. on
building st r ategicldefenses against ballistic missiles, bombers,
and cruise missiles, and today spends ten times more than the U.S.
on strategic defense ground-based laser weapons capable of
interfering with low-altitude U.S. satellites The Soviet Union
already may h a ve built By contrast, the U.S. only recently has
begun accelerated research into the weapons capabilities of
directed energy devices. It has virtually no continental air
defense system, and it has dismantled the only ABM site allowed by
the 1972 ABM Treat y to demonstrate its faith in the doctrine of
mutual assured destruction (MAD).

All in all, the USSR is ahead of the U.S. in many key areas of
strategic defense operational experience and keeps the production
lines of anti-ballistic missiles and radars ope n to allow rapid
production expansion The Soviet ABM system gives Moscow valuahle
The Soviets have outinvested the U.S. in research on laser I 1. The
$80 billion figure includes the cost of active ballistic missile
defenses, concrete hardening of silos, c i vil defense, and
proliferation of command and control centers I and particle.beam
weapons satellites, aircraft, and capable of use against ballistic
missiles cruise missiles. They have invested more heavily than the
U.S in protecting their strategic force s with concrete hardened
silos and their population with civil defenses.

Moreover, they have deployed new mobile missiles which will
vastly complicate U.S nuclear targeting policy. And unlike the
U.S., in addition to maintaining and upgrading an existing A BM
system they have built radars and tested surface-to-air missiles
SAMs)'"in .a way that suggests they may be planning to deploy
rapidly a nationwide anti-ballistic missile defense system.

Treaty by quickly building a nationwide strategk defense system
t hat worries many U.S. defense experts and prompts them to support
the Strategic Defense Initiative. What if the U.S. were to discoyer
that the Soviet Union had begun deploying large numbers of
anti-ballistic missiles and tracking radars that had been secr e
tly manufactured and hidden in warehouses? What if U.S.
intelligence indicated that these deployed ABM systems were being
tied into the existing Soviet strategic defense network, which
includes the.Moscow ABM site, a massive air defense system possibly
ca p able of destroying ballistic missiles, and the vast array of
early warning and tracking radars that could become the basic
surveillance and battle-management infrastructure for a nationwide
ground-based strategic defense system? And what if all these deve l
opments occurred and the,U.S. was left completely undefended and
incapable of"bui1ding a strategic defense system for a number of
years I It is precisely this Soviet potential to "break outv1 of
the ABM I The consequence of such a Ilbreakoutll by Moscow w ould
be'a strategic nightmare for the U.S. The very basis of the
American deterrent-mutual assured destruction, the ability to
threaten nuclear retaliation against the Soviet Union--would be
called into question.

Left completely undefended, the U.S. would be unable to
retaliate adequately against a Soviet first strike. Not only would
much of U.S nuclear forces be destroyed if the Soviets launched a
first strike but much of what was left over would be unable to
penetrate a nationwide Soviet strategic defens e system. The upshot
would be a I United States checkmated in a strategic game of chess.
I This nightmare need not occur. To prepare against a sudden Soviet
breakout of the ABM Treaty the U.S. should begin preparations
Safeguard ABM site at Grand Forks, No r th Dakota, as a first
installment on a nationwide strategic defense system. Building such
a site is permissible under the ABM Treaty. The system chosen
should be capable of defending the largest territory possible. A
good candidate is the Exoatmospheric R e entry Interceptor
Subsystem (ERIS), an anti-ballistic missile system currently under
study that is capable of I for the deployment of a single
ground-based ABM system at the old I 2provid-Ang .partial defense
of the entire North American,continent by the early 19908, for a
relatively modest $3.5 billion.

Announcing that the U.S. would deploy ERIS at Grand Forks would
hedge against a Soviet ABM Treaty breakout near-term limited
defense of the most likely targets of Soviet nuclear attack with
collateral prot ection of the U.S. population. As the technology
becomes ava~lab1e more t'echnically sophisticated systems would be
added to an ever more comprehensive and effective strategic defense
system. And in the meantime, preparing for deployment would
strengthen R eagan's hand at the arms control table by showing the
Soviets once and for all that stalling on offensive reductions, as
witnessed in Iceland, cannot pressure the U.S. into giving up its
right to deploy defense weapons It would provide THE ROLE OF
STRATEG I C DEFENSE IN SOVIET STRATEGY Ballistic missile defense is
an integral part of.Soviet nuclear Soviet military planners believe
that even less than strategy perfect ballistic missile defenses can
minimize the damage caused by a nuclear attack on leadership c
ommand cfnters, military installations and industrial sectors of
the economy. They also help to protect against limited nuclear
strikes launched by accident or by smaller nuclear powers such as
China, France, or Great Britain. By defending strategically i
mportant targets, Soviet ballistic missile defense protects the
very means by which the USSR wages war.

Offensive and defensive forces thus serve the same end in Soviet
military strategy to win a war. While this mixture of offensive and
defensive strategic forces is often viewed in the West as
undermining the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, in the
Soviet Union it is considered the preferred warfighting force
posture. On the one hand the offensive llcounterforce't doctrine to
launch preemptive strik e s against Western forces before they can
be used against the Soviet 2. Information provided by Lockheed
Corporation 3. Sayre Stevens The Soviet BMD Program in Ashton B.
Carter and David N. Schwartz, eds Ballistic Missile Defense
(Washington, D.C.: Brookin g s Institution, 1984 pp. 186-88 3-
Union-sezxes..the dual purpose of limiting dama2e against the
homeland and reducing the Western capacity to wage war such passive
defenses as concrete hardened silos and civil defense are intended
to minimize war damage a n d protect the leadership, military
forces, and industrial resources to achieve a military victory over
the West. Thus according to Soviet military doctrine, the military
mission of ballistic missile defense may be tactically defensive,
but in a larger con t ext it'is'strdtegi'cally offensive On the
other hand This offense-defense strategy to destroy U.S. military
forces while protecting the Soviet capacity to wage war serves two
very important strategic purposes 1) it promises to provide Moscow
with sufficie n t military leverage to terminate hostilities on
terms favorable to the Soviet Union; and 2) by minimizing the
damage caused by U.S. attacks, it serves the larger offensive
purpose of enabling Moscow to fight a protracted nuclear war
against the United Ska tes.

While the U.S. historically has understood nuclear strategy in
terms of,stability, mutual restraint, and deterrence, tpe Soviet
Union has viewed it as a means to achieve military victory I SOVIET
STRATEGIC DEFENSES I Pre-ABM Treaty Develoments I The S oviet Union
apparently began research on ballistic missile defense (BMD) in the
late 1940s or early 1950s. In April 1960 a U-2 reconnaissance
flight discovered an anti-ballistic missile testing 4. The term
counterforce refers to the ability of nuclear wea p ons to attack
an opponent's military forces. The President's Commission on
Strategic Forces (the Scowcroft Commission) reported in 1983 that
the Soviet Union currently possesses a theoretical first-strike
capability against U.S. land-based ICBMs. The Sovi e t Union's
large force of prompt hard-target-kill ICBMs gives Moscow the
capability to destroy with 80 percent effectiveness all the some
1,500 "value" targets in the United States (including ICBM silos,
command and control centers, airfields, and submarin e ports) in a
preemptive strike. With their land-based ICBM force alone the
Soviets could hit each of these 1500 U.S. targets with three
warheads apiece. See Rebort of the President's Commission on S
Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1983). p 4. Als o see
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Game Plan (Boston and New York: Atlantic
Monthly Press, 1986 P 106; and Bruce Russett Fred Chernoff, eds.,
Arms Control and the Arms Race: Readin from Scientific American
(New York: W. H. Freeman Co., 1983, p. 110 I I 5. Stevens, OD. cit
pp. 186-

I 4-range.lat.Sa-ry Shagan, Siberia, and observed BMD-related
actirities at a small village on the edge of Lake Balkash in
Central Asia flights revealed that a major BMD program was underway
by 1960 and that progress had been made on a very large radar th at
could track missiles for an ABM system been establiFhed within the
Soviet Air Defense Forces to manage the U-2 By 1958 an independent
organization had I BMD program.

The first successfully deployed Soviet ant#-ballistic missile
was the I1Galosh,l1 first publicly displayed in 19

64. This was a I nuclear-armed missile designed to intercept
incoming ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere. The llGaloshll
had a range oft more than lop miles and was first deployed in a
ring 40 to 50 miles outside Moscow. I t depended on a network of
radars: IIHen Housell early warning radars around the periphery of
the Soviet Union for locating targets, "Dog Housell and "Cat
Housell radars for battle management, and IITry Add1! radars for
tracking and guiding the intercepto rs to their targets. In 1968
the Moscow ABM system consisted of four llGa'loshll complexes with
a total of 64 missiles I I I 6. Stevens, 90. cit, p. 191 7. David
B. Rivkin, Jr Manfred R. Hamm, "In Strategic Defense Moscow is Far
Ahead,"

Heritage Foundation Backarounder No. 409, February 21, 1985, p.
5 8. The first Soviet attempt to deploy a BMD system possibly came
in 1962 with the preparation of launch sites around Leningrad for
the "Giif fon" surface-to-air missile However, doubts about whether
the "Grif f on was intended for use against ballistic missiles or
high-altitude bombers such as the B-70 have led some analysts to
question whether the "Griffon" had BMD capabilities. The same holds
true for the SA-5 surface-to-air missile, which was first deployed
i n 19

63. It, too, may have been intended for defense against
high-altitude aircraft but may have had some capability against the
U.S. Polaris A-1 sea-launched ballistic missile as well. Although
the BMD capabilities of the "Griffon and SA-5 are uncertain, one
thing is nonetheless very clear: Both of these missiles were
developed at the Sary Shagan BMD center. Thus if they were not
eventually deployed for use against ballistic missiles, the reason
possibly was technological failure and not doubts in the Sov i et
high military command about the utility of ballistic missile
defense as such 9. Stevens, OD. cit, n. 1, p. 199; Mark Miller,
Soviet Strategic Power and Doctrine; 1 The Oues t for SuDeriority
(Bethesda, Maryland: Advanced International Studies Institute 1982
n. 15, p. 101 I 5 I I I with The ABM Treatv In 1972 the Soviet
Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty the U.S. limiting
the deyelopment, testing, and deployment of 1u certain types of BMD
systems.

Soviet abrogation of ballistic missile.defens e in practice the
U.S., which dismantled its singl6"permissible ABM system at Grand
Forks, North Dakota, the Soviet Union retained its ABM system
around Nor is it correct to assume that the Soviet Union agreed to
the This did not represent a total Unlike M oscow ABM Treaty
because it accepted Western concepts of stability and deterrence.
basic reasons: Moscow most likely agreed to the ABM Treaty for
three 1) At the time the ABM Treaty was signed, the U.S. was about
to deploy the tlSafeguardtt ABM system, wh i ch was more capable
than the Soviet ttGalosh.tt Moscow probably believed that a U.S.
BMD system would reduce the effectiveness of the emerging Soviet
%ounterforcett strategy that required the capability to thfieaten a
preemptive strike against U.S. strate g ic and military forces 2)
The Soviets were aware that the U.S. could very likely beat them in
a race in BMD technologies ABM Treaty to retard U.S. BMD research
and development while they caught up in areas of technology
applicable to an advanced strategic defense system deploy
multi-warhead missiles known as MIRVs (multiple independently
targeted reentry vehicles). A U.S. MIRVed missile force protected
by a vast ballistic missile defense system would have complicated
Soviet plans to develop a counterforce s trategy against U.S.
military forces motivations are clear: Unlike the United States,
which signed the ABM Thus they probably agreed to the 3) In the
late 1960s the U.S. for the first time was about to I In all three
cases the.differences between Soviet a n d U.IS 10. The ABM Treaty
allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to build two ABM
sites comprising no more than 100 interceptors each. A 1974
protocol limited deployment to one ABM site. The Treaty also
limited deployments of large-phased array ra d ars for ballistic
missile target acquisition, the development of mobile land-based
BMD systems or components, and the development and testing of air
defense missiles and radars for purposes of ballistic missile
defense. See the text of ABM Treaty and the 1 974 protocol in Roger
P. Labrie, ed., SALT Handbook: Kev Documents and Issues 1972-1979
(Washington D.C American Enterprise Institute, 1979, pp. 15-22,
246-48 11. Stevens, p~. ciL, pp. 203-04 6I Treaty large1 y
for..fear that defensive forces would underm ine strategic
stability MOSCOW entered into the treaty to gain strategic leverage
over the United States.

Post-ABM Treaty Develoments I The signing of the ABM Treaty in
1972 limited future deployments of Soviet.ABM systems;-but it did
notend Soviet strategic defense activities strategic and air
defenses than on its nuclear offensive forces.

Moreover, since 1970 Moscow has spent at least $80 billion more
than the U.S. on strategic defense procurement, which includes air
defense passivg defenses, and the pro liferation of command and
control sites Since 1975 the Soviet Union has spent slightly
morelzon The Soviets are currently modernizing the ABM system
around Moscow. The new ABM-X-3 system will have two layers of
defenses silo-based "Galosh" missiles (SH-11 s ) for long-range
interceptions outside the atmosphere and silo-based high
acceleration missiles SH-08s) which can discriminate between real
reentry vehicles and decoys inside the atmosphere. The new system
will have the full allotment of 100 anti-ballisti c missile
launchers permitted by the ABM Treaty. It will also have an
improved warning system consisting of new launch detection
satellites and a new network of phased-array radars for detection
and tracking that will stretch in a gigantic arch from the Ca
ucasus mountains in southern Russia to Krasnoyarsk in eastern
Siberia.

The large phased-array radar station at Krasnoyarsk is a clear
violation of the ABM .Treaty. It is located in the interior of the
country and is pointed not outward, as required by the Treaty, but
inward. The Krasnoyarsk radar's central location and orientation
suggest strongly that it is intended for coordinating a defense
against ballistic missile attack and not early warning as the
Soviets claim. Krasnoyarsk completes a nationwide ne twork of large
phased-array radars that could be linked with existing BMD tracking
radars to form a rapidly deployed nationwide ABM radar system.

Another controversial Soviet radar is the "Flat Twin" tracking
radar 12. Keith B. Payne, Strategic Defense Sta r Wars" in
PersDective (Lanham, Maryland jand London: Hamilton Press, 1986),
p. 47 13. Moreover, while in Fiscal Year 1986 Congress funded only
74 percent of the Pentagon's request for SDI, the Soviets continued
to spend ten times the U.S. level of effort on strategic defense.
ReDort of the Sec retarv of Defense CasDa r W. Weinberaer on the FY
1987 Budnet (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1986),
pp. 59-60, 75 7- for the new Moscow ABM system,llwhich potentially
violates the'ABM Treaty's ban on mobile radars as is required by
the ABM Treaty, but is transportable and capable of being
disassembled, moved, and reassembled in a few months The Moscow ABM
system, moreover, has been supplemented by an indeterminate number
of SA-10 surface-to-air missil e s, which could be used to defend
againstacruise missilesi- and the new.SA-X-12 GAM, which has the
pgtential to intercept certain types of ballistic missiles. Moscow
currently has over 60 SA-10 sites operational with roughly 520
launchers and islsworking o n at least another,30 with
approximately 175 more launchers be used against missiles and
bombers. They are mobile and could be upgraded as part of a
nationwide point defense ABM system. Intelligence sources estimate,
in fact, that the new SA-X-12'SAM 'coul d be used to defend 88-25
mobile missile bases, SS-18 ICBM silo complexes against
submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or to intErcept
intennediate-range nuclear missiles such as the Pershing 11 The
"Flat Twin" radar is not fixed I Both of these SAM syst e ms could
I The Soviet Union launched a large research program on advanced
strategic defense technologies in the late 1960s. Moscow currently
has over 10,000 scientific and technical personnel working at a
half-dozen research and development centers on fou r important
areas of technologies applicable to ballistic missile defense: 1)
high' energy lasers 2) parthcle beams; 3) radio frequency weapons;
and 4) kinetic energy weapons. While the U.S. is ahead of the
Soviet Union in BMD-related technologies that can be applied to
strategic defense in the distant future (such as microelectronics,
sensors, and high-speed data processing the Soviets are ahead in
technologies which have a potential near-term application to
ballistic missile defense system such as anti-ta c tical ballistic
missiles, radars, some laser,s and particle beams I The Soviets are
ahead of the U.S. in laser weapons research and development. In
1984, Robert Cooper, then Director of the Pentagon's Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA claim e d that Soviet I
14. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Soviet Noncomdiance
(Washington, ,D.C Government Printing Office, February 1, 1986),
pp. 3-4 15. Soviet Militarv Power 1986 (Washington, D.C.:
Department of Defense, 1986). p. 57 I I 16 Soviet M ilitarv Power
1985 (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 1985). p 50. I 17.
Payne, 9 cig p. 56 18. soviet Militarv Power 1986. pp. 47-8 I I I i
I spending on*:lase& research was around three to five times
greater than that of &he U.S in 1970 U.S. and m ay already have
built one or more underground testing facilities deployment of the
worldls first operational ground-based laser anti-satezllite
system, which could also be used against ballistic missiles. The
Soviets have"'also'cdnducted'weapons'te8ts in s pace from a
ground-based laser stationed at Sary Shagan in Kazakhstan, a test
prohibited under the lO-yaar ban on SDI-testing proposed by the
Soviets at the Iceland summit. The Pentagon estimates that a Soviet
ground-based laser defense against ballistic missiles could be
deploged as early as the late 1990s or shortly after the year
20

00. If Moscow skipped some steps in testing, they could deploy a
ground-basad laser system against ballistic missiles by the
mid-1990s weapon system before it was thoroughly tested between
laboratory development and deployment of weapon systems is normally
far less than in the U.S. While the U.S. tends to field weapons of
greater technological maturity in comparatively smaller numbers,
the Soviet Union often deploys weapons b efore they are
technologically perfect. Soviet "firsts include the first deployed
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs the first deployed
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and the first
deployed The Soviets built the world's first excime r laser
Moreover, Moscow began work on an x-ray laser before the
Intelligence reports suggest that the Soviets have'begun It is
highly likely that the Soviet Union would deploy a laser In the
USSR the time 19. U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Deoa r
tment of Defense Authorization' for Aoorooriations for Fiscal Year
1985, 98th Congress, 2nd Session, March 8, 22, April 24 1984, p.
2974 20. Roger P. Main, "The USSR and Laser Weaponry: The View from
Outside Defense Svste mq Review, vol. 1, no. 3 (1985), p p. 67-8,
71, 76-77 21. According to intelligence reports, the U.S. Air Force
imaging reconnaissance satellite has photographed two new large
high-technology facilities under construction which could be
involved in developing laser weapons. One site is nea r Dushanbe in
Soviet Central Asia. It may include both laser and microwave
weapons systems. Both sites are reportedly in an advanced state of
construction. See "White House Assesses Reports of Soviet Asat
Laser Facilities Aviation Week and Soace Technoloev . September 15,
1985, p. 21 I L 22. "Experts Say Soviet Has Conducted Space Tests
on Anti-Missile Weapons," The New York Times, October 15, 19

86. I 23. Soviet Militarv Power 1986, p. 47 24. Soviet Militarv
Power 1985. p. 44 I 9 I/ ABM even&hough more adva nced in
advanced general actual strategic researchz$n these weapons systems
was at the time the U.S. Thus even though the U.S. has a more
technology base than the Soviet Unidn, it may trail defense
deployments by the Soviets because of its penchant for de ploying
only- highly tested, mature. military weapons.

The USSR devohes at least 70 percent of its space launches to
military purposes. Accordhg"to"a 1980 U.S Senate' report, the
launch tonnage capacity of Soviet 5ockets is about nine times
greater than th e annual level for the U.S. Moreover, Soviet space
technicians are already designing powerful rocket boosters that can
carry heavy payloads into space. This puts Moscow in a far better
position than the U.S. to launch lasers, sensors, and other
advanced s t rategic defense systems quickly into space once they
are-developed SOVIET POTENTIAL FOR BREAKING OUT OF THE ABM TREATY
The considerable pace of Soviet ballistic missile defense
activities suggests that Moscow may be planning to break out of the
limits imp o sed by the ABM Treaty and deploy a nationwide
strategic defense system large numbers of ballistic missile
interceptors and radars to provide significant coverage of national
command, military, and industrial targets in the Soviet Union. If
the Soviets alo n e were to construct a ballistic missile defense
system, the threat of a U.S. retaliatory attack after a Soviet
first strike no longer would be credible as a deterrent. Unable to
respond to Soviet ABM deployments for at least a few years, the
U.S. would be left with a windgw of vulnerability unmatched by any
other threat in its history.

The Soviets have the potential to deploy strategic defenses very
rapidly.

Union could build ABM sites consisting of engagement radars,
guidance radars, ground-based ABM launchers, and high acceleration
interceptors Breaking out could entail rapidly deploying very The
Pentagon calculates that in the near future the Soviet 25. St e
phen M. Meyer, "Space and Soviet Miliiary Planning," in William J.
Durch, ed National Interests a nd the Militarv Use of SDacq
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1984 p. 81
26. Soviet Militarv Power 1986, p. 51 27. Testimony in 1977 b y
Malcolm A. Currie in Soviet SDace Program: 1976-1980 Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1982), Part 1, p. 13 28. Stevens,
p~. cit, p. 316 10 in a matteE. off.-months ra$her than the years
required of more traditional ABM systems. The Central I ntelligence
Agency concludes that the Soviets Ilcould undertake rapidly paced
ABM deployments to strengthen the defenses at Moscow and cover key
targets in the western USSR, and to extebd protection to key
targets east of the Urals, by the early 199Os.Iv o f the ABM Treaty
tomorrow. An infrastructure of large phased-array radars
for'detection'and guidance of ballistic mis'sile's' already exists.
Moreover, if the Soviets have secretly manufactured large numbers
of ABM radars and ABM-capable surface-to-air mi ssiles deployment
of a nationwide ABM system could begin immediately and proceed
quite rapidly.

If the Soviet Union decides that it can win a technological race
with the U.S. in strategic defense technologies, or indeed if it
believes that the U.S. will ne ver build strategic defenses of its
own then it will have an enormous incentive to deploy at least a
limited ballistic missile defense system beyond what is allowed by
the ABM Treaty. This is because as the U.S. deploys counterforce
systems such as the MX missile and the yet to be deployed D-5
submarine launched missile, the Soviets may want to protect their
own missiles.

Kremlin may want to build a nationwide strategic defense system
in order to retain the first-strike capability edge it currently
enjoys The Soviets could choose to begin breaking out The THE U.S.
RESPONSE: THE CASE FOR NEAR-TERM DEPLOYMENT The most sensible U.S.
response to this Soviet ABM Treaty breakout potential would be to
prepare as soon as possible for the deployment of a U.S. ABM s y
stem. Research on far-off strategic defense technologies is
necessary, but not sufficient. The Soviets could gain as much as a
five-year lead over the United States in strategic defense
deployments if they should decide to deploy a nationwide ABM system
v e ry quickly. U.S. deterrent forces would be blunted by the
deployment of a nationwide Soviet ABM system non-nuclear U.S. ABM
system in the next five to six years. Dr. James Fletcher, chairman
of the 1983 commission on SDI technologies concluded that Ilpoin
tll defenses of U.S. ICBM silos could be deployed immediately and
that other layers of strategic defenses could be available in the
near future. The U.S. could begin deployment of the Many near-tern
options exist for building a limited ground-based I I

29 . Soviet Militarv Power 1986, p. 45 30. "Soviet Strategic
Force Development," testimony before a joint session of the Senate
Armed Forces Committee and the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate
Committee on Appropriations, June 26, 1985, by Robert M. Gates a n
d Lawrence K. Gershwin, pp. 5-6 11 one ABM-si.te permitted under
the Treaty if it had the political will to do so. This single site,
built to maximize the protection of U.S missile sites and
population centers, could be seen as a down payment on the more c
omprehensive strategic defense system envisioned by the Strategic
Defense Initiative planners. With it the U.S. could gain valuable
operational experience and a hot production line for ABM components
to cope with the possibility of a Soviet breakout from t he ABM
Treaty. I could build a single ABM site with 100 ground-based
launchers capable of intercepting missiles in space defense is the
Exoatmospheric Reentry Vehicle Interceptor Subsystem ERIS),
currently under development by the U.S. Army. The ERIS syst e m
will consist of a solid-fuel ground-launched interceptor rocket
placed on a wheeled vehicle incoming warheads at an altitude of 60
miles and 2,500 miles down range from the launch site. 100 ERIS
launchers could be deployed beginning in 1993 at the old U . S. ABM
site at Grand Forks, North Dakota, fgr a total cost of $3.5 billion
(in fiscal year 1986 dollars To make ERIS even more effective, the
U.S. could link the ground-based interceptor system to advanced
early warning satellites aBd airborne optical tra c king systems
already under development To provide the greatest protection of
American territory the U.S The best candidate for such a It will be
light-weight and capable of'hitting I To ensure that a single ABM
site is a step toward a more 1) Announce tha t the ABM site at
Grand Forks represents a mere comprehensive system the Reagan
Administration should first installment on the strategic defense
system that will expand as the technology becomes available.
Moreover, the Administration should ensure that al l references to
the ABM site in arms control statements and negotiating positions
refer to the need to counter the single Soviet ABM system around
Moscow and the emerging Soviet potential to break out of the ABM
Treaty in a relatively short period of t'ime 31. This price
includes the cost of missiles, upgraded radars, and battle
management sys tems 32. The SDI program office is currently looking
at an advanced early warning satellite system called the Boost
Sensor Tracking System (BSTS), which could very qu i ckly identify
ballistic missiles in their boost phase and turn data on their
flight path over to a mid-course tracking system. Another candidate
sensor system is the U.S. Army's Strategic Defense Command's
Airborne Optical Adjunct, an early warning survei l lance sensor
system that could identify and track ballistic missile warheads in
the mid-course. The cost of these sensor systems is not included in
the listed price of ERIS. For more on near-term deployment options,
see the October 1986 issue of The Herit a ge Foundation's National
Securitv Record I I 12 - 2 Ensure--that funds for construction of
the ABM site come from strategic weapons accounts or the military
services' budget and not from the SDI budget for research on
advanced strategic defense technologi e s. This would not only
enable advanced strategic defense research to continue unabated but
put the onus of funding an operational defensive system precisely
where it belongs, namely, in the context of the clear military
mission of defense and deterrence a nd not on weapons research and
development 3) Base any arms control agreement with the Soviets
involving SDI on the assumption that moratoriums on ABM deployments
should gain time for discussing how deployment should take place,
not whether it should.

SDI deployment made at the Iceland summit is acceptable only if
the U.S. gets an unequivocal Soviet statement on the inevitable
.deployment The Reagan proposal for a ten-year moratorium on
full-scale of strategic defenses at the end of that period I
CONCLUSIO N I Since the ABM Treaty was signed in 1972 the momentum
in strategic defense activities has been greater in the Soviet
Union than in the United States. These activities include
maintaining and modernizing the Moscow ABM system, testing air
defense surface - to-air missiles capable of mobility, constructing
illegal large early warning. radars possibly for a nationwide ABM
system, and research and development of advanced directed energy
weapons. Also important to Soviet strategic defense capabilities
are concr e te hardened ICBM silos and communication and command
centers, an extensive civil defense program and hot production
lines for ABM systems which could be used.to rapidly produce
components of a large strategic defense system. As these BMD
activities clearl y demonstrate, Moscow has maintained its
steadfast confidence in the military utility of limited ballistic
missile defenses and has done so notwithstanding its signing the
ABM Treaty.

Moscow now has the potential to break out of the ABM Treaty
much.more ra pidly than the U.S. can respond nationwide BMD system
in the absence of comparable defenses on the U.S. side would render
America's retaliatory nuclear.deterrent largely ineffectual I
against ballistic missiles, developing radars and other ABM
components I I Soviet ballistic missile defense activities are so
extensive that The deployment of a Soviet 13 The United States,
therefore, must begin building a ballistic missile defense system
as soon as possible to counter not only existing Soviet missiles
but th e threat of a Soviet breakout of the ABM Treaty. The
technology for near-term deployment already exists.

All that is required is the political will to begin constructkon
of a single ABM site at Grand Forks and the acceleration of the
development and testing programs for those BMD'technologies that
shoQ the most promise for near-term deployment.